A sojourn at the hospital

Neo-natal intensive care units are, by their nature, very depressing places. Not that other hospital units aren’t depressing, but there’s something more depressing about seeing tiny beings hooked onto tubes and monitors, surrounded by constant beep-beeping of medical equipment.

It’s all the more depressing if your child is in it.

It was just over three years ago that my daughter June spent nearly 10 days in such a room at a French hospital. Recounting the experience, which followed an even more traumatic birth experience, still brings tears to my eyes. And now I am in a déjà vu situation. I have been forced to such a unit, this time in Jakarta, for my son. He is sleeping soundly, between another small baby with a fever and a huge baby with a deformed head with a sickly pallor not unlike cement. Not a happy place to be. Not a place I’d imagined he’d be spending, after an ideal birth 20 days ago.

Unlike my daughter’s birth, which was a medicalized experience and a hugely disappointing one, it was such a relief to have had an ideal birth for my son. Bloody show at one day short of 38 weeks, labour starting naturally in the middle of the night (and allowing me to sleep for six hours or so) two days later, which got so strong by 8 in the morning the following day that I rang my ob/gyn. By the time he examined me at a clinic I was 3cm dilated. I headed towards the hospital, where, less than 2 hours after my arrival, my son was born. The pain was immense of course, and all the breathing techniques I’d learned went out the window, but with the help of the nurses, my ob/gyn, and my husband, I was able to give birth without the help of any pain killers. No induction, no epidural, no episiotomy—the perfect birth experience. Since I have an aversion to hospitals (and especially the food served there, yikes!), I managed to get permission from both my and my son’s doctors to have us discharged the next day. Breastfeeding started off well, my milk came in 3 days post-partum, my baby was gaining weight really well… then all of a sudden, fever stroke. Low-grade fever, but all parenting books say any fever over 38 degrees celsius in a newborn should be treated with caution. So I took him to a clinic, and this is how we’ve ended up back in the hospital where I gave birth.

My son has had blood and urine tests done and cultures taken to rule out signs of bacteria or any other harmful infections. The paediatrician doesn’t know what the problem is—only to say that because fever goes down every time antibiotics are given, it’s probably a bacterial infection. It breaks my heart to see my son in the hospital. What on earth is going on inside this tiny body of his? The only thing I can do for now is to give him the nourishment he needs—my breast milk—and hope that he will get better soon.

Hello world!

Hello! I am Sky, Blanca's son , and I was born on Indonesian Hero's day, 2011. I was so ready to come to this world that my mum (and her driver) was worried that I'd be born in the car on the way to the hospital! Fortunately for Mum I was pretty small at 2.6kg, had I been any bigger I'm sure she would have really suffered. Everything went well and I was able to go home the next day and meet my bigger sister, June. She gave me a nice present that I'll use as my doudou!

That's it from me now. Bye!

Missing Daddy

I spent most of the day feeling guilty yesterday. I made my daughter cry, over a trivial thing. The lesson I have learned is: never rush a strong-willed girl, even on a morning when there are a million things to do and there are only 10 minutes left before rushing out the door!

My partner has left on a trip for nearly two weeks, thus leaving me, June, and the dog to take care of ourselves. So it's me that has to get everything ready in the morning, and drop June to preschool before going to the office. Yesterday, June took her time eating breakfast, thus little time was left for me to get other things done. I needed to go upstairs to get something I'd forgotten, so I thought I'd just carry June with me and get it quickly before coming back downstairs again to get everything ready for departure. But alas, nothing is that simple these days with a two-year old!

First, she refused to move from the sofa, as she wanted to listen to her favourite nursery rhymes ("music on!"). When I managed to coax her into going upstairs, June insisted that she walk up the stairs (clock is tick-tick-ticking!). And then she wanted to look carefully at all the photos displayed in the stairwell (tick-tick-tick). And ask me questions about the photos (tick-tick!). And then, more questions (tick-tick-tick!). At which point, I just picked her up to rush up the stairs. Next moment, a huge howl from June: "Daaaaddyyyyyyy!!!'. Tears fall down her cheeks.

Of course Daddy is more patient. He probably would have allowed June to ask all the questions she has about the photos, even though she has already asked the same ones a million times. He would also wake up earlier so that he does not have to rush. But then, he does not have to put on make-up and get ready for the office at the same time getting June ready for preschool!

I am sorry, June, for being an impatient mother. But I am doing my best. I know you miss Daddy, but so do I.

Gorillas and Dharmas

Following my earlier post about raising multilingual child(ren), I am happy to report that in the past few days June's language skills have developed tremendously. English is still a little weak, although she has added another word to her vocabulary ("gorilla"--and yes, Eric Carle's From Head to Toe has been her favourite book for a few weeks now). Words she currently uses most frequently are kore and koko ("this" and "here" in Japanese, respectively) in Japanese, and in French, la (used as "here"). The amount of babbling has increased tremendously, though most of the time it is difficult for us to decipher what she is saying. She is also pointing at everything and asking what it is. Or at least that's what we think she is doing. She also says "caca" a lot, which, although it means "poo" in French, she is using the word to indicate her (wet or dirty) diapers. She also says o (in the "tail" sense, in Japanese) a lot, due to another favourite book of hers, a series of three books with a Dharma doll (だるまさん) as the main character. I am surprised that despite all the talking we do, it's the books that are teaching our daughter vocabulary.

According to some recent studies, the amount of books one has at home is correlated with the years of schooling a child will complete. This finding is not at all surprising, from my point of view--my father's hobby is buying books (but not necessarily always reading them, to the great frustration of my mother). We grew up surrounded by books, and both my brother and I have our PhDs. What's intriguing is that, according to another study quoted in "Book owners have smarter kids",

simply giving low-income children 12 books (of their own choosing) on the first day of summer vacation "may be as effective as summer school" in preventing "summer slide" -- the degree to which lower-income students slip behind their more affluent peers academically every year.

This finding gives us a lot of hope in putting a stop to the vicious cycle that perpetuates poverty--lack of education. At the same time, I cannot help but wonder about the important role of libraries--libraries are an important place where children from lower-income households can access books.

Fortunately (or unfortunately?), I have inherited my father's hobby, and our house is full of books. I do hope that the shelves full of books will have a positive impact on her--we want to encourage June to pursue higher studies, and will certainly give her every opportunity she needs.

Raising multilingual child(ren)

Having grown up bilingual and bicultural, I am quite determined to bring up June multilingual. From even before she was born, I have spoken English to her, while my husband speaks in Japanese. The nanny we had in France was francophone. Since moving to Jakarta, June has been going to a French daycare 3 days a week. In August, when daycare centres and preschools start again, we are planning on putting her in an English-speaking preschool 3 days a week and a French-speaking daycare 2 days a week. We will soon get a nanny, who will probably speak Bahasa Indonesia to her.

According to the Multilingual Children's Association, there are two most common language systems in multilingual families. The language system I grew up with was "Minority Language at Home", where Japanese was the language spoken and used at home. My parents refused to use English with me, even when it was clearly my preferred language; I am glad that they did, though, because I can speak Japanese fluently. With our daughter, we use the "One Person, One Language" system.

In my job, I work with and encounter multilingual people on a day-to-day basis. From my own experience and from observing others, I contend that there is no one who is "perfectly bi(multi)lingual". While it is true that many people are able to speak two or more languages with ease, it is very uncommon to find people who can use--that is, speak as well as write--two or more languages to the same level of sophistication. There are people who can write well, but I have yet to encounter anyone who can write flawlessly and sophisticated in two more languages, especially when it comes to things that are technical/scientific, and/or require a lot of expertise/specialized knowledge. I am not saying this is impossible--but very uncommon.

For me, it is important for June to have very strong English language skills. Sure, she should be able to speak Japanese fluently, so that she is able to communicate with her extended family members. It would also be nice if she could understand the language of her birth place, France. And of course she should learn the language of any country where she be living in--Bahasa Indonesia, for one. But ultimately, I would like for her to have solid English reading/writing skills, which I expect would be important and advantageous for her future.

Considering that in France, June spent most of her waking hours during the week in a French-speaking environment, and since our move to Indonesia, continues to be exposed to French on a regular basis, it is not a surprise to us that the first comprehensible word June uttered (aside from "mama" "papa", etc.) was French. Words she currently regularly uses are: tiens, de l'eau, doudou, dodo. She also speaks"words" that do not really mean anything in any of the three languages she is exposed to, but she has attributed fixed meanings to them. Since our move to Jakarta, I have noticed that June's English language skills are lagging behind--although I know she understands all languages quite well, her level of English comprehension is suffering, probably due to the fact that she is only exposed to it 1-2 hours a day.

It was thus a great joy to hear two days ago the first English word uttered by June: "apple". We probably would not have realized what she was saying, except for the fact that I was peeling an apple when she spoke the word.

I will be working on increasing June's vocabulary!



image taken from www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/HipparchusGraviation.htm